Trading deforestation-why the legality of forest-risk commodities is insufficient

• Autor(a) principal: Tiago N P dos reis
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Vinicius Guidotti de Faria, Gabriela Russo Lopes, Gerd Sparovek, Christopher David West, Raoni Guerra Lucas Rajão, Mariana Napolitano Ferreira, Marcelo M S Elvira, Raul S T do Valle
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFMG
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac358d; http://hdl.handle.net/1843/51986; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5256-3978; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3639-2101; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0161-6339; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8301-8529; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5091-6514; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1133-4837
• topic: Commodity supply-chains; Traded deforestation; Legal CO2 emissions; Brazilian Forest Code; Legislation requirements; Export-driven agricultural expansion; Bold sustainability criteria; Opções de commodities; Desmatamento; Dióxido de carbono; Florestas - Legislação

Consumer countries and blocs, including the UK and the EU, are defining legal measures to tackle deforestation linked to commodity imports, potentially requiring imported goods to comply with the relevant producer countries’ land-use laws. Nonetheless, this measure is insufficient to address global deforestation. Using Brazil’s example of a key exporter of forest-risk commodities, here we show that it has ∼3.25 Mha of natural habitat (storing ∼152.8 million tons of potential CO2 emissions) at a high risk of legal deforestation until 2025. Additionally, the country’s legal framework is going through modifications to legalize agricultural production in illegally deforested areas. What was illegal may become legal shortly. Hence, a legality criterion adopted by consumer countries is insufficient to protect forests and other ecosystems and may worsen deforestation and conversion risks by incentivizing the weakening of social environmental protection by producer countries.